The description of art in this section is not intended to constitute an admission that any patent, publication, or other information referred to herein is prior art with respect to this invention, unless specifically designated as such.
Recently, cable television and broadcast television has become rife with commercials and other interruptions to the primary programming, or feature (referred to herein, separately and collectively, as commercials). While some commercials are amusing, they lose their appeal very soon. Changing channels during a commercial break, so-called “channel surfing” or simply “surfing” is at least as old as the first known remote control. With more and more channels to surf, a user is prone to become engrossed in the process of surfing itself and miss the primary feature he was viewing on the primary channel.
The prior art teaches a method of detecting commercials in a television to avoid video taping the commercials. During a television broadcast, when the program changes to a commercial, both the video and audio components of the composite television signal fade to a low amplitude level. Momentary loss of both the video and audio components at the beginning of each commercial may be used as an indicator of a commercial. U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,286, issued to Hanpachern describes in more detail a system for detecting fades in television signals to avoid recording from a commercial television broadcast. U.S. Pat. No. 4,319,286 is hereby incorporated by reference.
U.S. patents and applications relevant to remote control technology include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,515,052; 5,255,313; U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/418,091, filed Oct. 14, 1999, and U.S. patent application Ser. No. 09/611,620, filed Jul. 6, 2000, all of which are incorporated herein by reference. Patent '052 discloses a universal remote control with function syntheses. The remote control comprises driver circuitry for communicating code signal generation sequences, including a code generated command system, powered by a code setting signal; and memory for storing information therein. Patent '313 discloses a universal remote control system having a signal generator to transmit signals which will cause specific functions to occur in specific control devices. Pat. App. Ser. Nos. '091 and '620 disclose means and methods, inter alia, for operating a remote control. Application '620 discloses means and methods for interfacing, and navigating with secondary material on a removable digitally encoded medium. Application '620 also teaches means and methods for monitoring keystroke navigation sequences and other processes related to remote control technology.
Other U.S. patents related to remote control technology, and in particular relating to learning technology, include U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,959,810; 5,288,077; and 5,537,463, which are incorporated herein by reference. Patent '810 discloses means for transferring instructions to RAM wherein the instructions and/or data are transferred from a source external to the RAM. Patent '077 discloses a remotely upgradable universal remote control. Patent '463 discloses means in the remote control for picking up an electromagnetic signal for an electromagnetic signal source and storing output signal data in memory. The output signal data stored in memory may correspond to control function data, which may be transmitted to a device to be controlled.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,029,239 describes a remote control in which the user first enters one or more digits of channel number information and then presses a SEND key to transfer the channel change information to a TV set or Cable/satellite decoder box.
While the present invention relates to a wide variety of electronics and media systems, discussion of exemplary embodiments directed towards remote controls and televisions will facilitate understanding.